The First Time I Killed a Man
by Rector
Summary: Written for @sherlockchallenge September 2016 prompt: First Time.
1. Chapter 1

**The First Time I Killed a Man**

I didn't do it with my own hands, naturally. Nor was I in the general vicinity when the deed was done. It was a decision that had to be made and I was the only one at the time with the ability to make it. Oddly, while the intellectual knowledge of my action was with me the entire time, it wasn't until some while afterwards that my other analytical faculties accepted I had killed someone. It was a finely balanced sensation somewhere between trepidation and liberation yet I felt not the slightest pang of moral repugnance or self-abhorrence, nothing, in fact, that you might consider a suitable accompaniment to the official beginning of one's own moral decline. Even though it was the first time I had orchestrated a death, I realised it would not be the last. It had not been a hard decision to make; it had been utterly logical, after all, but the ease with which I signed the man's life away surprised me for quite some time.

It was 1990. I was twenty-two years old and had been in my new job for less than a week.

###

They had come for me even before I had completed my Masters at Merton; an MPhil in early modern history and contemporary politics with Languages on the side. My tutor Lewis Kershaw, lovely chap, initially demurred at my choice of studies, hinting heavily that I was being too acquisitive in my interests, following this with a slightly confusing homily on the perils of casting one's seed too thinly upon stony ground. To this day, I'm not entirely certain what he meant, though his intentions were kind, of that I am confident.

The first time I was approached, it was by a man I'd noticed previously sitting at the back of a Political Society debate. I was crossing the Quad on a grey afternoon in late October when I saw him a second time, waiting for me, leaning against a cold stone wall. It was obviously me he wanted since I was the only one heading in his direction when he straightened and besides, everything from his physical posture to the several crushed cigarette ends at his feet screamed he'd been waiting from someone for some time. That his expression changed the moment he recognised me, suggested I was that particular someone.

"Mycroft Holmes?" The man's expression was affable and polite. He was reasonably well-dressed and wore decent shoes, Lobbs by the look of them. His accent, military posture, the fact that he smoked Players and the precise line of his haircut told me he was an ex-Naval officer, though interestingly, he'd not retired through either age or ill-health. That such a person had been making some effort to locate and track me spoke of several possibilities. Given the preponderance of Oxbridge-educated personnel in the security forces, one of the most obvious was that I was about to be sounded out on becoming an intelligence operative. Though which side he might want me to spy for was quite up in the air. This was Oxford, after all.

It was enough that I paused my stride as he spoke my name. I was the man he wanted and I was curious enough to wait and see exactly what he wanted me for. The afternoon was already growing dark, I've always enjoyed the Michaelmas term for its long evenings but it was also becoming cold. Even though I had my college scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, my feet were beginning to chill and my ungloved hands were also starting to make their discomfort known.

"Yes," I nodded. "You've been waiting to talk to me for some time, so the least I can do is offer you a coffee somewhere warm," I also offered him a reassuring smile as he seemed taken aback. "There's an acceptable place in Queen's Lane," I added, gesturing towards the appropriate exit from the Quad. "Shall we?"

The early evening rush had not yet begun so it was relatively easy to find a table for two at some distance from the other people in the café.

"My name is Alan Hastings and I work for the Home Office," he began almost as soon as the coffee had been deposited on our table. "I can see that the things I've heard about you aren't exaggeration, Mr Holmes."

I was intrigued. Not by the fact that he'd heard 'things' but that someone had felt it worthwhile to compile a dossier on an unknown Oxford postgraduate. I was clever, I knew that, very clever in fact. But I had no money or connections and my family were hardly the kind of people to attract serious attention from anyone. My paternal grandfather had served in both World Wars as a submariner and some distant uncle on my mother's side was a CMG but other than that, there was only Sherlock and myself. My younger brother was just beginning to discover some of life's less pleasant realities, but had done nothing, I would have thought, to merit attention from the Home Office. Besides, the man was lying. I quite believed his name was genuine, but if he worked for the Home Office, then I was seriously off track. And I knew I wasn't.

"Shall we get to the point of this conversation?" I asked, a little irritated at being lied to. Apart from being a fundamental waste of time, the implication was that I was too dim to notice deceitfulness when it was less than two feet away. "I have quite a lot of work to do."

Hastings pursed his mouth and looked across the table with narrowed eyes. I could see he was re-evaluating his approach and I sighed. Perhaps this whole thing wasn't going to be as interesting as I had imagined. Tilting my head to one side as he continued to work out his next remarks, I started to rise from my seat. I had another tutorial first thing in the morning and as I fully intended to demolish the antiquated arguments of my Tutor's most favoured theorist, I felt a further read of his works would not be wasted.

"The department I work for is looking for a new analyst," Hastings leaned forward. "We think you might be suitable for the position. It's a very complicated job, it has to be done in total secrecy and it will demand you face challenges you cannot imagine," he added, watching my face. The fact that I hadn't already walked off must have given him some idea of my piqued interest.

"So not a spy then?" I asked, slowly retaking my seat. "I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or not."

His eyes widened at my comment. Or perhaps it was the matter-of-factness of my tone. He hadn't managed to surprise me and that was what shocked him more than anything.

"Not a spy," Hastings shook his head, his gaze still on my face. "Though you'd be working with spies at times; spies and agents and field operatives," he shrugged and sipped his coffee. "But the work you'd be doing is to analyse data, checking raw information as it comes in and providing a review and interpretation to senior department staff."

"In the Home Office?" I asked, my tone just sufficiently dubious to make him smile and look down at the tabletop.

"There are a good many agencies and departments within the Home Office's walls," he said, mildly amused. "Not all of them are made public and a few of them are unknown to many even within the Ministry itself."

If the man had done his homework properly, he would have realised that anyone studying contemporary politics at Oxford would be possessed of a relatively clear idea of who was running what in the British Government. Alan Hastings was either lazy, incompetent or stupid and as such, I wanted nothing more to do with him. I got to my feet again.

"If you are the best recruiter your department has, then please leave me alone," I said, picking up my books. "Enjoy the coffee." Walking out of the door I was not in the least surprised to find myself alone and unfollowed. _Good_. I had no time to waste playing anyone's spy-games.

###

The second time I was approached was altogether different.

It was a few days before the start of Christmas vac and I'd arranged to spend a long week interning with a UN translation service to see for myself how such operations worked behind the scenes. Then I was going home to spend Christmas with the parents before returning early to college to finish writing my dissertation. I had started postgraduate study young and had absorbed everything available to me in the year I'd been at Merton. There was little reason to linger, though I confess I quite enjoyed the peaceful college life and was even toying with the idea of reading for a DPhil. It would have been an indulgence more than a true vocation but I was a bit stuck on what to do after I _left_ Oxford.

Mummy expressed a clear preference for me to stay on at the university and teach, but the notion of having to deal with herds of the dim-witted ranked very low on my list of desirable options. My father had suggested government service, but even though I found big-picture politics fascinating, actual politicians themselves bored me to tears. Some form of senior administrative position might suit; I had a knack for policy design and was usually able to penetrate the most byzantine of complex diplomatic scenarios rapidly and without fuss, so both the Civil and Diplomatic Services were a possibility. I knew that I would pretty much have my pick of any available opportunities; I was young, extraordinarily intelligent and fielded an impressive academic history. My appearance, while nothing to write home about, was inoffensive and I was tall enough to look reasonably presentable in evening wear. But I didn't really want to be a Civil Servant or diplomat either, which was why I had listened to the man Hastings, though he turned out to be as mediocre as everyone else.

This new approach was at a different level entirely. Kershaw had called me to attend a brief meeting in his rooms, ostensible to do with an additional reading list over the vac, though he was not alone when I arrived.

The other man was close to my tutor's age, late fifties. Of medium height, he dressed very well indeed, almost dandified in a conservative sort of way. Three-piece suit of an immaculate charcoal wool worsted; top quality linen, rich blue silk tie, discreet sapphire cufflinks and tie-pin, glossy black shoes. His nails were manicured and his greying hair cut close to his head no more than three days previously. His expression remained impassive when I entered the room but his eyes did to me exactly what I had just done to him. I managed not to smile.

"Mycroft, meet Sir David Bonneville from the Home Office. Sir David and I used to room together here at Merton thirty years ago," Kershaw waved me into his room. "He was the cleverest student I knew then, just as you are the cleverest student I know now," he smiled. "Quite a coincidence that you are both here at the same time and I felt it was fitting for you to meet."

My ears pricked up at the words 'Home office' and 'coincidence' and I waited to see what would happen next.

Bonneville was not a man to stand on ceremony and offered me his hand. "Lewis has been telling me all manner of interesting things about you, Mr Holmes," his voice was cultured and educated. "You are quite the paragon."

"Professor Kershaw is overly generous, Sir David," I smiled self-deprecatingly as is required by any polite conversation in which one's praises are sung. "He is an excellent tutor."

"In certain things," Bonneville agreed, his eyes not leaving mine for a moment.

"Might I offer you some tea, young Holmes?" Kershaw was already on his feet, fiddling with the teaware. "We might need some more hot water."

"Tea would be lovely," I said, feeling a tension grow in my chest at Sir David's close scrutiny. Either a most interesting conversation was about to ensue or the man was a homosexual. My tutor toddled away with the teapot leaving me alone with a potential pederast. Though Bonneville was shorter than I, he was probably more physically powerful but if needed, I could almost certainly run faster.

"No, Mycroft," Sir David shook his head, amused at what could only be the expression on my face. "I am far more interested in your mind than any other part of you," he smiled, reaching into a breast pocket to retrieve a slim silver case. "Care for a cigarette? Best Virginian leaf." I didn't smoke, but then all of a sudden, this wasn't really about smoking so of course I accepted.

"The Home Office?" I asked after I had lit up. "I seem to be hearing a great deal about the Home Office of recent," I smiled again after lobbing the ball gently back to his side of the conversational net.

"Oh?" Sir David lifted an eyebrow and linked his fingers. "From anyone I might know?"

"I can't quite remember the name," I frowned as though I was actually trying to remember. "It may come to me later."

"Of course," Sir David maintained an impassive face but I could swear the corner of his mouth twitched. "There are all sorts of people at the Home Office these days," he added airily. "So hard to keep up with changes to people and ... things."

If this man had forgotten a single detail of importance in his entire life, I would be astonished. We were playing so obvious and so obviously silly a game that I found myself relaxing a little. The worst that might happen here was that nothing happened. I puffed on my cigarette and waited for the next volley.

"Fresh tea," Kershaw returned and became mother. I stopped smoking and sipped the hot liquid instead, wondering which one of them was going to broach the real purpose of my being here.

"Lewis tells me you're uncertain as to your future career," Bonneville stubbed out his cigarette and contemplated me over his cup of tea. "Perhaps you need to widen your horizons?"

"At this point, Sir David, I am willing to consider anything that might ward off boredom, routine and idiots," I said honestly though perhaps a trifle smugly. Expecting Bonneville to raise his eyebrows at my conceit, I was moderately surprised when he simply nodded.

"How do you feel about Machiavelli?" he asked.

"Immoral behaviour, corruption and the murder of innocents?" I tilted my head, not even attempting to hide my interest this time. "He has his weaknesses too."

Sir David barked a laugh.

"There is a position in my department that might interest you," he said offering me his card. It was plain white with only his name and a London phone number. "Call if you'd like to discuss the possibilities."

I held the card upright between my fingers. "What does the job entail?"

"Call me," Bonneville smiled fleetingly, rising fluidly to his feet. "Thank you for the tea, Lewis," he said, shaking Kershaw's hand. "Lovely to catch up with you but must dash." Raising his eyebrows at me as he walked past, he nodded. "Mycroft," and was gone.

In that instant, the ball was well and truly back with me. The question now, was what was I going to do with it? I could leave it bounce away, untouched, though if I did that, I'd never discover if there actually was something of real interest waiting for me. I could see if Lewis Kershaw was up for a game of doubles, making him my go-between; it wouldn't be difficult to do. Or I could return the volley with both hands.

I sat in my tutor's room drinking tea and considering the murder of innocents.

###

I said nothing of the meeting with Bonneville to my parents, though Sherlock almost gave the game away.

"Something's different about you," he said, watching as I packed my post-Christmas trunk for the return to Oxford. "You're more focused than you usually are at this time of year. Why? What's changed? Have you met someone interesting?"

Of course, for Sherlock at only just seventeen, 'someone interesting' meant a viscera-coated axe-wielding murderer, or a pharmacist with a noteworthy line in exotic poisons.

My brother had completed his A-Levels two years early and was about to head off to Cambridge where he'd been accepted for the Lent term. Naturally, he wasn't going to come to Oxford; my presence there was sufficient to ensure that. He planned to study Organic Chemistry, though whether he'd ever have the application and self-discipline to complete his studies to the point of usefulness, was anybody's guess. In the meantime, he filled his waking hours with evil-smelling experiments that polluted the whole house and played merry hell with Mummy's good kitchenware. He was also corresponding with a number of police officers at Scotland Yard. Apparently he'd been able to advise them of some details they'd missed in several small cases, his assistance twice resulting in an arrest. He'd even taken to calling himself a 'Consulting Detective'.

However, when he asked his question, my thoughts flew back to that morning in Kershaw's rooms and Sir David Bonneville. I had indeed met someone interesting.

"You have, haven't you?" Sherlock's perceptiveness was almost the match of my own and I clamped down a sigh of irritation. My brother would dig and dig now until I had satisfied his elephant child's curiosity.

"Have you met a woman and fallen madly in love?" he sniggered scornfully. "A man? Are you finally in someone's sexual thrall? Oh, _do tell_ , brother mine. I want to hear all the disgustingly lurid details."

I continued packing my clothes and considered ignoring him though I realised it would be a futile exercise. I stopped folding shirts and turned to face him.

"I have not fallen in love with anyone, madly or otherwise," I said. "However, it may be that I'm going to be offered a job of some interest."

"Is such a thing possible?" Sherlock threw himself on my bed, wriggling around and making himself completely at home on my nice uncreased pillows. "What kind of job and with whom?"

"I'm not sure about the job nor do I have any clear idea who I might be working for," I found myself smiling. "In part, that's what has me considering it."

"A job you know nothing about in a company you don't know the name of?" Sherlock scoffed loudly. "Wait until Mummy hears about it; I'm sure she'll put a spanner in the works."

"I'd prefer you say nothing to anyone until I've undertaken further research," I made a mental note of everything that was in my trunk. Something was missing. "Once I've discovered the specifics, I might not want to take the position in any case. Even if I do, there might be a limit on the kind of details I'm permitted to tell people."

" _Oh_ ," Sherlock sat upright, cross-legged. " _Really?_ MI5 or MI6 do you think? Or is it Interpol? The CIA? _Mossad?_ " Clearly the idea of having a brother in one of the intelligence service appealed.

"I don't know," I raised my eyebrows, exasperated. "If I knew, I'd be able to say, but I don't, which is why I need to investigate further." I held out my hand. "Give it."

"Give what?"

"Don't be smart, Sherlock," I said, wriggling my fingers. "My razor if you please."

Scowling, my brother dug around beneath my pillows, producing the elegant leather case my parents had given me for Christmas, dropping it into my outstretched hand.

"You could always get yourself another one with the pay from your new job," he complained. "I don't have anything half as nice."

"Nor do you have half my beard growth," I stepped closer, running the back of my hand quickly over his jaw. It still had the softness of youth. He smacked me away angrily.

"Don't be in such a hurry to get older," I returned to my packing, ignoring his sulk.

"Want any help finding out about this mysterious job?" he asked with an echo of his earlier enthusiasm.

"It's best if I handle this alone," I said thoughtfully. "If it ends up being something I want to do, then I don't want to risk making a mess of things. And if it's something I'd rather avoid, having you involved would be foolish," I nibbled my lip. "Probably best to leave this with me, Sherlock."

"Fine," he stood abruptly. "Go and be boring like everyone else," he stalked out of my bedroom, down the passage and into his own room. His door slammed, though not as hard as it might have done. Poor Sherlock. Dying to exploit the power of his brain but with nowhere yet to unleash it. I privately hoped Scotland Yard would be able to maintain some interaction with my brother for as long as possible or Cambridge would be aflame before Easter.

Merton was deserted when I arrived back a full week before everyone else. There were several porters ghosting about the place; clearing the paths of snow, generally looking cold and wishing for somewhere warm to sit and smoke. I saw a brace of scouts carrying armfuls of clean sheets into the lower halls. Everything about the place whispered of a fresh beginnings for the New Year.

But all I could think about was the small white card tucked inside my wallet.

Reaching my room, I turned the radiator on and walked about in my coat until I could feel the air change from frigid chill to merely cold. My trunk had been left at the porters' lodge to be brought up, so I had nothing to do for the moment.

Reaching into my pocket, I took out the new mobile telephone I purchased in a Christmas sale on sheer impulse. I had read the user manual on the train coming up and while there was a still-patchy network coverage for something still so innovative, I had a soft spot for new technology and couldn't resist trying it. There was a general student phone out in the hallway, but if this novel toy of mine actually worked ...

I found myself pressing the tiny buttons on my Nokia 101 for the first time and holding the thing to my ear. Its lightness and lack of mass felt odd in my hand. I didn't even know if I could get through to London from Oxford on one of these; it seemed so undersized.

"Director's office, may I ask who's calling, please?"

"Mycroft Holmes calling for Sir David Bonneville," I sounded calm though my heartrate had just doubled. I waited for well over a minute.

"Mycroft, how good to hear from you. I trust you had a pleasant Christmas with your family?"

"Very pleasant. Sir David, thank you. I've returned early to college and wondered if you were still interested in meeting?"

"Delighted, dear boy," Bonneville's tone sounded genuine, but then, if anyone could fake sincerity, it would likely be him. "How about dinner this evening?"

"Tonight?"

"Unless you have a previous engagement?" Bonneville sounded as though he was smiling. "Is Old Bookbinders still there?"

"Yes sir," the old pub was still there. "But it's recently changed into a French restaurant."

"Better still," Sir David seemed satisfied. "I'll have my driver hold the car for you at seven tonight by the Lodge?"

"Perfect, thank you. I'll see you at seven."

And the call ended. All of which told me several things.

First, my new little phone worked beautifully, at least between Oxford and London; I would need to experiment with other locations. Second, Sir David Bonneville was a _Director_ of something in the Home Office, running a department he preferred not to openly discuss. He had the authority to recruit his own staff, valued intelligence and had a penchant for Machiavelli. Judging by his dress and manner and the fact he had a car and a driver, he was either privately moneyed or his work paid well and offered considerable perks. Thirdly, the man was very keen to talk to me. It was now just gone four-thirty. The drive up from London in snow was at least two hours. For him to have a car here for me by seven o'clock meant he'd have to leave town within the next twenty minutes in peak commuter traffic and he'd have to fly, simply _fly_ up the M40. Keen indeed.

###

The salmon was superb. I had no objection to Bonneville choosing the wines and liquors, after all, it was he who invited me to dine. Not that I couldn't have afforded it. The number of wealthy idiots at Oxford was legend and I had been providing study notes to a wide variety of the richest of them for the best part of a year. Such freelancing enabled me to afford the niceties of life, such as my new phone. Dinner would have been no problem, even one as upmarket as this was turning out to be. I munched happily through the delectable fish and several topics of social conversation, wondering when Sir David would open serious negotiations.

He was a patient man and it wasn't until we reached the coffee and cognac that he sat back in his comfortable chair and eyed me speculatively.

"Tell me Mycroft," he said, finally. "What do you see as being your greatest strength and what do you intend to do with it?"

 _At last_.

"My ability to think is my greatest attribute," I said without hesitation. "I'm still finding out what my brain is capable of doing," I smiled and swirled the fine brandy. "As for what I'd like to do with it ..." I paused and thought. I could use such an ability to make millions for myself and my family. I could become a merchant prince if I so desired. I could raise an army and lead it, or start a rebellion and bring a country to its knees. All it took was good planning and the right words in the right ears at the right time. I knew I could do these things, knew it without a second's thought. But were these the things I really wanted to do?

"I don't know what I want to do," I said, eventually. "All the things which I'm capable of doing would interest me initially but I know I'd eventually tire of them," I stared at the golden honey glint of the spirit in my glass. "And while wealth and commercial power has its attractions, somehow I feel these are not things that would attract me for long." I looked Bonneville in the eye. "I rather suspect I want to move mountains."

"Well done," Sir David nodded approvingly. "It's not at all easy to reflect honestly upon one's own insecurities and foibles," he said. "But self-honesty is utterly critical in the job for which you've applied."

"I've not applied for any specific position," I frowned.

"You've just had the interview, son," Sir David laughed. "And you're exactly what I'm looking for. Welcome to the department." Raising his glass, he saluted me.

"If I've successfully applied for a job, it might be helpful to know what it is," I threw back the remains of the cognac and waited as the liquor's heat burned its way down to my belly. My heart was beating fast again but it was nothing to do with the alcohol.

"I'm looking for a successor, Mycroft," Bonneville offered me another of his Virginia specials but this time I refused. I had no need of additional stimulants.

"My job is a complex one," he continued. "Requiring the incumbent to perform tasks that are both deeply analytical and absolutely confidential. Sometimes I have to employ unfriendly compulsion and various forms of influence to achieve an objective. I often need co-operation and help to do so, and yet those are usually the precise moments when I cannot let anyone know help is needed. I hold no formal authority and yet in many things I am the ultimate authority." Inhaling deeply of his cigarette's fragrant smoke, Bonneville nodded almost to himself. "I have a few more years left in me but I can already feel my brain is neither as elastic or as robust as once it was," his mouth turned down. "Using the same self-honesty that you have shown tonight, I am compelled to acknowledge that I have reached my peak and am now descending once again to the foothills." He smiled faintly. "One of the perils of the self-aware."

"Can you tell me what it is you actually do?" I asked, my gaze flicking left and right, to ensure our conversation would remain private. Sir David sat back in his chair and regarded me with a clinical eye.

"You might consider my function analogous to that of a clearing-house," he said, finally. "I stand at the confluence of many streams of information and use this constant flow of data to appraise developing situations and offer recommendations of action to relevant persons. Though I hold no high executive power, I am able to require the wielding of such power and often do. I am simply known as the _Director_. I am the British Government's tame omniscient and do the bidding of that august body." He stared at me, waiting for a response. Clearly, there was a great deal more to be said but I appreciated Sir David's concision. And _yet_ ...

"But if you are, as you say, the government's omniscient and you are able to deploy the executive power of government ..." I paused, considering my next sentence. Bonneville looked at me expectantly. "Then doesn't that mean you effectively _are_ the British Government?"

Sir David's expression didn't even flicker. Not so much as a blink gave his thoughts away. It was this stillness as much as anything that was my answer. _Christ_. I was being offered an apprenticeship in nothing less than running the country.

Instantly, my mind blazed with possibilities; international treaties and safeguards; the best placement of security forces; the machinations of hostile transnational corporations; issues of economic globalisation, huge networks ... images and ideas coalesced and exploded in my brain like vast pyrotechnics. I think I went into a stupor for a few seconds as the sheer magnitude of the role crashed over me. It was terrifying and stupendous. There was no way one person could ever possibly be able to do this. _I would fail_. I would implode from the impossibility of the task. It was a preposterous and nonsensical job.

I had to have it.

"I'd like to finish my dissertation first if I may," I coughed to mask a dust-dry throat.

"And how long would you need for that, do you estimate?" Bonneville lit a second cigarette, his eyes narrowing. He probably knew more about the state of my studies than I did.

My MPhil was mapped out. I had completed my primary research and essays, and needed only additional secondary materials. I had also completed a basic first draft but it needed to be thoroughly checked and then written out in a more final version. Fortunately, I had a small personal computer in my room which meant time was my own to allocate and sleep was just one more variable. Still, it was forty-thousand words of acuity, argument and polish. Any sensible estimate would be at least a month or six weeks.

"Two weeks," I nodded. "Give me two weeks to put my academic life to bed."

"I would have given you a month you know," Bonneville smiled cheerily, puffing smoke into the air. "But two weeks will do just as well." He leaned forward, extending his hand. "Do we have an agreement?"

Without hesitation, I accepted Sir David's offer.


	2. Chapter 2

I was met off the Oxford train on Tuesday morning, fifteen days after my dinner with Bonneville. Two men in dark coats in an unmarked but seriously luxurious car drove me from Paddington Station to a tall elegant building in Carlton Gardens just off Pall Mall. I had half-expected to be dumped into a cab and directed to some outmoded, middle-class hotel but frankly; I was too dizzy from excessive caffeine, nicotine and lack of sleep to care. The last two weeks had been manic. I had a semi-permanent headache, hadn't slept since Saturday night and had convinced Lewis Kershaw of my unalloyed insanity.

"Second floor, Flat Thirteen," the man in the front passenger seat handed me a set of keys after dumping my trunk on the pavement outside the building. "The Director wants to see you at nine tomorrow morning and said you should get some rest before then. A car will be here for you at eight-thirty." Without another word, he returned to the vehicle and it drove off.

Fortunately, for my fatigued state, there were several lifts. I dragged my heavy luggage in through the building's impressive glass entranceway towards the nearest set of steel doors, hitting the button for the second floor. Of course, number thirteen was down the far end of the wide corridor. Gritting my teeth, I heaved myself and my trunk to the designated doorway and unlocked the door.

It was still only mid-morning and a grey January light filtered through pleasingly tall windows and long voile curtains into a properly furnished apartment. Had I been in my more usual frame of mind, I would have investigated the entire place before I did anything else. As it was, my brain told me to find the nearest horizontal surface that would do for a bed.

Throwing my coat over the back of an expensive leather sofa, I left my trunk sitting in the middle of the hallway and looked for a door suggestive of _bedroom_. I found two; both furnished with a full suite of furniture and an ensuite bathroom, though one was slightly bigger than the other and had a King-sized bed. Never having slept in so luxurious a billet before, the choice was subconscious. Pulling the heavy curtains closed, I peeled off down to my underwear and crawled between the soft and sweet-smelling linens in abject relief. I conked out immediately because the next time I opened my eyes, a bedside clock I'd not noticed before told me it was after seven in the evening. I'd been asleep for nine hours.

My stomach advised me I was in imminent danger of death by malnutrition if I didn't eat in the next fifteen minutes and I tried to recall the location of any restaurants or take-away places the car had passed on the drive from Paddington, but there had been nothing close enough to be convenient. Perhaps I could find a place in the Yellow Pages that delivered?

Heading into the other area of the flat, I took note this time of both layout and furnishings, including the kitchen with its numerous cupboards. Might there perhaps be tea in one of these promising cabinets? The large modern refrigerator looked auspicious from the outside. Might there even be milk? Opening the fridge, I saw my beneficent host had ensured I would not lack for milk on my morning cornflakes. Nor would I lack for much else, though judging by the several bottles of Veuve Clicquot on the bottom shelf, I might end up with an expensive drinking habit. The whole thing was packed with every manner of comestible and all thoughts of going out to eat vanished.

I discovered a large sealed box bearing the name of an excellent West-end restaurant with my name scrawled across the top. Inside was a complete meal needing only the tender attentions of a microwave. An enormous carton of fragrant spiced soup, a large pastry pie with indeterminant contents but which smelled incredible, a sealed container of par-cooked broccoli and a tiny pot of what appeared to be gravy. Thoughtfully, there was also a written list of heating instructions. Having had to cater for myself for the last several years I felt equal to the task; I set the oven in motion

While the food was warming, I inspected the cupboards for tea. As with the refrigerator, the place was well-stocked; there was even a jar of my favourite marmalade. As soon as my brain realised I wasn't going to starve, it also realised I was in dire need of a shower. Then I needed to see what other surprises Bonneville had arranged for me; I little doubted there'd be something for me to look at before our morning meeting.

My bedroom's ensuite was one of the most hedonistic rooms I've ever been in. The shower alone would have done simultaneous service for several good friends and perhaps that was its intention. The hot water and decent sleep had returned me to a semblance of civility and now all I wanted to do was eat and redirect my brain away from the ordeal of the last two weeks.

Back in the kitchen, as I hunted for the familiar box of my usual tea of which I now fully expected to find, I decided the evening merited a celebration. I had completed my Master's degree in nine months, had apparently landed the job of my wildest fantasies, been billeted in a superb apartment and was about to dine on a gourmet meal prepared just for me. Tea, no matter how invigorating, was hardly up to the job. Revisiting the fridge, I liberated one of the bottles of fizzy and hunted for suitable glassware. My first evening in London was shaping up very nicely.

Sipping a most satisfactory bubbly, I wandered the apartment from room to room, of which there were seven plus the wide hallway which had craftily invisible cupboards along one wall. To the left of the hall as one entered the flat was an arched entrance to a large sitting room complete with a modern television and sound system. Beyond that was a small, though elegant dining area, the setting of which was definitely Regency. The kitchen could be entered both via the lounge and through its own arched entrance further up the hallway. Directly across the hall from the kitchen archway was a small WC and laundry, followed by the two bedrooms and ensuites. At the far end of the hall, directly opposite the front door, was a closed and locked door which led me, once I had located the correct key on my new keyring, into a neatly appointed office. Not huge, but bigger than my room at Merton. The desk seemed rather distinguished and I sat in the chair assessing the fit. I had no idea whose flat this was or whose champagne I was making so free with, but sitting here seemed a perfectly acceptable thing to do. After all, I'd been handed the keys without caveat. I realised there were no windows in the office and wondered if that was by accident or by design. I scoffed at my naivety. Accident? What was I thinking?

As I looked around, partially lost in thought, it became obvious that anyone sitting at the desk in the office would be able to see right down the hallway to the front door. If one was expecting undesirable visitors say, in the middle of the night, the very best way to greet them would be sitting at this desk, door open, all the lights out, with a pistol in one's hand. Anyone crossing the threshold uninvited would never know what hit them until they were too dead to worry about it. For some reason, the thought comforted me.

There was a long shallow drawer in the centre of the desk which I slid open. It contained nothing apart from a thin grey plastic case, the size of a small attaché case. Laying it out on the desk's top, I could see a fastening at the front. Putting my empty champagne glass to one side, my curiosity overcame me and I fiddled with the catch until the thing opened. I was rather pleased when it turned out to be one of the new notebook computers or 'laptops' as I had heard them called. Very tempted to see how it worked and what it would let me do, the oven _pinged_ , alerting my stomach that eating was still on the agenda.

Deciding in this instance that an avoidance of death by starvation was of a higher priority than my brain's petition of curiosity, I headed into the kitchen where a most delectable aroma told me decent food awaited. Pouring more champagne, I loaded everything else into dishes and onto a tray, heading into the dining table to offer at least a token of respect to such a wondrous repast. The Laksa was divine. The pie turned out to be beef and Guinness and equally heavenly. Though hunger made the best sauce, I spent the next fifteen minutes glorying shamelessly in the joys of the table, refilling my glass as I went. I was feeling much more the thing by the time I'd finished dinner and decided to revisit the mysterious computer.

I had heard of these new laptops but I had never used one before. Finding a cable which connected one side of the computer to a power socket in the side of the desk, it took a very little time before I had the thing turned on and, ostensibly, working. No operating guide had been provided which made me smile. With everything else this flat contained, the omission of a user manual was not accidental. There also appeared to be multilevular passwords and encryption of the strangest details.

It was as well I'd had a proper sleep earlier as it was almost midnight and the champagne long drunk before I persuaded the little beast to divulge its secrets. And what secrets they were. File names of astonishing sensitivity. Letters signed by the highest in the land. Copies of receipts for all manner of classified materials and weaponry. Names, places and events. Bonneville must have felt very sure of me to provide access to such information so early in the game. Half of me understood what he was doing. The other half was appalled at his recklessness.

The rest of the flat could wait. I needed more sleep and I certainly wasn't about to leave the laptop computer in the office. I brought it to bed with me and laid it beneath my lowest pillow. Far enough away to be unnoticeable in my sleep; close enough to be missed if anyone came for it during the night. I double-checked the front door was locked and deadlocked and that everything else was switched off or closed down. Once I was satisfied of the flat's essential impregnability, I crawled back into bed with a mental note to awaken at seven o'clock. The very large bed was equally comfortable the second time of trying, and I drifted off in very short order.

###

The same two men I'd met at Paddington arrived on the dot of eight-thirty the next morning. I had been waiting for three minutes with my briefcase containing a few things I'd used at Merton in one half and the laptop computer in the other. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, was likely to be doing or what was going to be expected of me during the day ahead. I was as excited as I remembered being on the eve of my sixth birthday before my parents took me on a tour of the Palace of Westminster for the first time.

The car deposited me at Whitehall in Spring Gardens, a journey of not more than seven minutes. The driver pointed me towards a nearby entrance, saying that someone would meet me there and convey me to my destination.

A woman in her mid-thirties waited for me at the security check inside the entrance.

"Here," she said without introduction. "You'd better put this on," handing me a security badge for the breast pocket of my most decent suit. Clipping on the plastic card made the morning seem less surreal. I was actually here. Wherever _here_ was, of course.

Following my silent guide, we walked though endless great halls and corridors until we reached a smaller and much more lacklustre part of whatever building we were now in. There was less marble here and a lot less glitz. The place had a look of casual dreariness, as if no care at all had been taken to render this specific area as uninteresting as possible.

Which of course, made it immediately fascinating. Halting in the middle of a wide, marble-tiled passageway, I observed everything, absorbed as much as I could and remained completely silent. The woman pointed me to a very ordinary-looking door. "In there," she waved me on. "You're expected."

Not bothering to knock, I opened the door to find myself in an incredibly dull little waiting room with ancient, post-war wooden chairs placed around the walls, a weary piece of carpet on the floor and a range of elderly posters on the walls advising the reader to 'protect and survive'; archaic gems of 1970s British civil defence. The prints were stained with age and disintegrating at the corners. There was a second closed door directly opposite the one I'd just entered, its half-glass panels grey and in need of a good polish. On the surface, this did not seem to be the kind of place a man like Sir David might call home.

However, I also noticed the heavy-gauge steel locks masquerading as Yale, the very careful mounting of the extra-thick glass in the far door and the small scratch revealing the shine of steel beneath the veneer of wood itself. There was also an odd device, perhaps for surveillance, mounted flush against the upper edge of the central light fitting. This room was not at all what it pretended to be. I waited, hopefully looking intelligent. The far door opened and a man only a few years older than myself beckoned me through.

"The Director will see you in his office," he said, walking me through a second set of glassed doors into a significantly wider corridor that was suddenly much more upmarket than the waiting room I'd just left. The marble was back, though there was also a very rich and heavy carpeting everywhere I looked. While people clattered and stamped outside, in here was an oasis of muted undertones and silent footsteps.

My escort noticed my noticing and gestured around with his hand. "You'll get used to it," he smiled. "We try and keep things peaceful in here; it helps with the work."

I wondered whose work he had in mind when we turned a corner onto another wide corridor with several closed doors on either side and a very impressive-looking portal right at the far end.

"Sir David is waiting for you," the man pointed to the big door, smiled briefly again and vanished back around the corner. Taking a deep breath I decided that knocking was the right step this time, but was called in before I could raise my hand to the door.

This new room was definitely more stylish. Large, wood-panelled and with a brilliantly intricate hand-knotted Axminster covering the bulk of the floor. The majestic central desk was the grandfather of the one I'd used in the flat the previous evening; same shape and drawers, though this one was larger and on a much grander scale. The entire room shone in dark tones of antique woods, polished brass and green glass lampshades. It felt as if I'd stepped back a hundred years into some high Victorian gentleman's club.

"Welcome, Mycroft," Bonneville was in the corner, busying himself with a modern coffee set, returning to his desk with two cups, pushing one across to me. "Is the flat suitable?"

"The flat is exceptional, Sir David," I took up the coffee and inhaled the wonderful aroma. "I don't know whose it is, but the owner very kindly left me dinner last night. I'm afraid I also celebrated with a bottle of their champagne, but of course I'm happy to replace everything I used."

"The flat is yours, Mycroft," Bonneville leaned back, lighting up a cigarette. "At least, yours to use until you're are able to find your own domicile somewhere in London, though close to Whitehall is generally the wisest in the long run."

Mine? The apartment was mine to use?

"Even without knowing how much money I can count on, I'm reasonably certain I won't be able to afford the rent on a place like that in Carlton Gardens," I said, sipping the coffee.

"I'm sure you'll find the financial aspects of your arrangement most equitable," my new mentor nodded. "And the flat is part of the deal," Sir David was unhesitating. "It's a government-owned building and thus there is no rent to pay. I'm going to need you close to this department in every sense of the word for the foreseeable future, Mycroft," he said. "When problems develop, they have a habit of doing so extremely rapidly and, given the various time zones with which we deal, often in the middle of the London night. I will need you here urgently and without waiting an hour for you to arrive. This is why you'll be living less than ten minutes away and will have your own driver on call twenty-four hours a day, as do I."

"And what form do these problems take, sir?" my curiosity was acute.

"All in good time, my boy," Bonneville nodded at my briefcase. "Anything of interest in there?"

"Only this," I said, drawing out the grey-cased computer. "I have no idea how this was left in the flat, but I believe you should have it back; there's all manner of sensitive things in here."

"So you managed to crack the passwords, did you?" There was a hint of a smile.

"Not that hard to do, sir," I pushed the computer across the desk. "The security on this thing is rather feeble if you don't mind me saying."

"What did you think of the information you read?" Bonneville didn't seem at all surprised that I'd accessed the computer's memory.

"Frankly, I was disturbed any of it was put onto a mobile device in the first place," I said truthfully, gesturing to the laptop. "In something as transportable as this, such information is dreadfully insecure and begging to be stolen."

"Did you consider the information to be genuine?"

The question made me pause. I had assumed the information was authentic from the moment I read it; there was no reason for it not to be and no indication I could see that it had been faked. Of course, as soon as I asked myself why such forged materials might exist, I understood that sometimes people needed to see things, or even steal things, that were not real.

"Is it genuine?" I asked, thinking of anything I could that might suggest it wasn't.

"Not a word," Sir David puffed smoke into the air and stubbed his cigarette out. "The first thing you are going to learn is the difference between genuine information and details that merely seem genuine," he said, unlocking the computer and switching it on. "Take, for example, this letter purportedly from the previous Home Secretary ..."

I spent the rest of the morning in a small side office next to Bonneville's, wading through reams of letters, some real, some not, being schooled in how to read between the lines in more ways than one. I had no conscious awareness of the passage of time until he tapped me on the shoulder just after one o'clock.

"I think a spot of lunch might do," Sir David handed me a long black umbrella. "The weather is foul," he observed, wrapping a fine silk scarf around his neck. "We shall enjoy a pleasant lunch and then you will accompany me to one of the most productive hotspots of international and political gossip in town."

Having studied a great deal about contemporary British politics at Merton, I assumed the best place for political gossip would be somewhere around the House of Commons, or perhaps in some political Whip's office. My expression clearly gave my ignorance away.

"My tailors, dear boy," Bonneville smiled, escorting me down yet another lengthy passageway, out through a heavy wooden door into what appeared to be an old map-room, thence through another side door into a quiet cloister leading out to the side of the building. I would no doubt generate a full map of the environs in my mind in a short space of time but for the moment, I was comprehensively lost. Sir David's car however, was not lost and waited quietly for us as we walked the remaining few feet in the damp grey winter's afternoon.

Lunch, a perfectly civil affair at Murano's in Mayfair was followed by a swift drive to Old Burlington Street and the one-hundred year abode of Anderson and Sheppard, tailors to royalty since 1906. Clearly Sir David was a known figure, as he was immediately escorted to the side of a roaring open fire where he was seated and offered tea.

"I'm looking for a spring suit for my nephew here," he announced to all and sundry leaving nobody in any doubt of my lineage. "Is Sidney cutting today or is he still at the show in Munich?"

Within moments, I was draped with several different bolts of fine cloth, while different types of buttons and even thread were compared and discussed around me. I realised this was all for show; me being the perfect foil for Bonneville. I drew all the overt attention while he stood in the wings, ostensibly approving of my choice of a delightful light grey Prince of Wales check and matching grey buttons. Did sir desire a waistcoat? Had sir any thoughts about ties? On which side did sir dress? Would sir care for a warming brandy?

Never having been sized up for a custom-made suit before, I was fascinatedly paying attention to at least eight simultaneous things, as well as watching Sir David chatting away to a variety of onlookers as I was virtually disassembled in public. I had a vague awareness that bespoke suits cost a great deal, but I said nothing, confident that Bonneville would call the entire thing off before a single thread was cut. I looked for my mentor, only to find him in deep discussion with a tall thin man in the farthest corner from the window. Both men turned their faces to the side when they spoke, lifting their hands to partially cover the movement of their lips. Even if the conversation was being watched, the watchers would extract little of value.

The conversation around me turned to the pressing matter of shoes, raincoats and shirts. I'd heard the name of Turnbull and Asser before, but Huntsman, Poole and Co and Gieves and Hawkes meant little to me. How quickly that was to change.

The various bolts of fabric made way for several already-made jackets and trousers into which I was thrust into and out of via three different changing rooms both alone and, on one occasion, with the door open and several pairs of eyes upon me as I tried on a rather fetching sports jacket.

The camel cashmere overcoat was the final straw and tiring of being Bonneville's distraction, I turned my head, hoping to locate him and ask for mercy. He was sitting at the fireside sipping tea like a spinster aunt.

"When you're quite finished _dallying_ , Michael, we need to be off," he admonished in an exasperated tone, as if _I_ had been the one who'd kept us both here. "You'll need to return for the rest of your fittings in a few weeks, but the other things can be delivered to your apartment building this afternoon. It's quite late now and we _really_ must be going." Accepting the apparent chastisement with good grace, I had no idea what he was talking about, nor why my name had suddenly changed. Realising my place was not to question, I stayed silent. Back in the car however, I felt free to ask.

"What was that for?" I met Bonneville's gaze. "I know a play when I'm in one. But what else was going on in that place? Who was the tall man you were talking with in the shadows?"

"All excellent questions, Mycroft," Sir David's eyes scanned people on the street as if waiting for something to happen. "Wait until my office, if you don't mind."

Minutes later, after we had returned to his office via the entrance in the cloister, I was treated to another coffee while my mentor sat back in his chair and stared at me, raising his eyebrows. There were so many questions that I had to put them in some order of priority.

"Did we go through all that so you could talk to that man?" I asked. "Who is he and why did you want to speak to him in a public place?" I hesitated. "And what were you waiting for in the car on the way back to the office?" It was the last question, I think, which drew his sharp glance.

"You noticed that, did you?" he pursed his mouth and looked as if her were considering how much to share with me. Finally deciding, Bonneville reached into one of the desks capacious drawers, pulling out a thick manila folder with the words MOST SECRET stamped in red across the front. He pushed it across the table to me. "Read it and then tell me the two points you think are most key," he checked his watch. "You have twenty minutes," he waved me away into the small side office.

The file contained the life and times of the man Bonneville had spoken to at the tailors.

 _Avel Melnyk_. Ukrainian, forty-three. Ex-KGB, ex-SBU. Agent, double-agent and spy-about-town. Played the mercenary during the Russia-Georgia war in 1980, resident in London the last three years, ostensibly as the manager of a Kiev-based import-export company located on the river in North Woolwich. There were several photographs of the man in various uniforms and locations, most of them showing him with an automatic weapon in his hands. Mr Melnyk certainly seemed to like his small armaments, especially since his company appeared to ship little else. There was also a closely-typed record of the contracts and deals the man had been involved with, but it was the attached pages that had my eyebrows rising.

Avel Melnyk had been arrested on several occasions by agencies unfriendly to his way of living. On at least two of those occasions, he'd been quite brutally tortured, barely escaping with his life the last time. His most recent arrest had been on the basis of information supplied, a copy of the letter condemning Melnyk to imprisonment and persecution attached to the file.

A letter signed by David Bonneville.

For whatever reason, Sir David had informed on Melnyk some five years earlier, the result of which was a most unpleasant experience for the man. According to the remaining notes in the file, Melnyk had been seeking his betrayer quite assiduously since that time. The notes on his activities stopped short at a date some four months prior. For some reason, Melnyk had stopped looking. Just like that. Something felt very wrong.

The two key points were obvious and alarming. Taking a slow deep breath, I returned to Sir David's office and retook my seat.

"Well?" Bonneville lit a cigarette. "Tell me."

"Point one. Melnyk has probably discovered you are the one who betrayed him five years ago," I said slowly. "You know this but need to keep him onside for as long as possible to maintain knowledge of the armaments pipeline through him to indeterminate Ukrainian interests operating under the cover of the import-export company from Kiev," I almost felt like asking for a cigarette myself. "Point two. Melnyk is going to try and kill you."

Bonneville nodded, matter-of-factly. "Yes," he said. "I've been expecting it since October."

"But you were talking to each other like old friends in the tailors," I lifted my hands, not really understanding.

"For a very long time, we were," Sir David sighed. "Until Melnyk decided to sell out several of our other mutual old friends to an unfriendly government, resulting in loss of life, not only of the people we knew but in one case, an entire family. I would have been next and merely acted pre-emptively."

"So his plan to assassinate you is essentially revenge?"

Bonneville smiled. "Call it good business," he smiled bleakly. "With me around, Avel Melnyk is restricted in what he does as he knows I have eyes everywhere. I could simply have him removed, but his role as a conduit of information between London and Kiev is too productive, and I am loath to willingly lose that data stream," his lips thinned. "It is one of the reasons I sought you out." I nodded, understanding. It was a case of wanting something very dangerous. In the car, Sir David had been watching for an assassin. And if, for whatever reason, he was to die ...

"Can you find leverage?" I asked. "Some vulnerability of Melnyk's you could exploit in your favour? Some family member, someone or something he values too much to lose?"

"An excellent idea, Mycroft," Sir David lit another cigarette. "But there is nothing. I have most certainly looked, believe me."

"But a Damoclean sword hangs over you," I frowned. From everything in the folder, Melnyk was an unpleasant individual in every sense of the word. His removal, no matter how it might damage the London-Kiev arms route was surely nothing compared to Bonneville's continued existence.

"Ah, the absolute nature of the young," Sir David smiled. "Unfortunately, not even Machiavelli's truisms were perfect," he said. "I will protect myself and continue to use Avel Melnyk for as long as I am able."

"And where do I fit into this as your nephew?" I asked. "Melnyk now knows I have a connection to you. He may try to manipulate it."

"Indeed, he might," Bonneville nodded. "But not yet, not for a while."

"And if he succeeds?" I must have looked as grave as I felt. "If you die?"

"I am not dead yet, Mycroft," Sir David smiled cannily. "There are a great many things you have to learn."

I returned to the side office and continued reviewing the false papers on the laptop, though the idea of Bonneville being removed on the whim of someone as reprehensible as Melnyk burned in my stomach.

It was after six-thirty that evening when I was dismissed for the day, Sir David accompanying me out of the building the way I had entered that morning. There was a pattern to the passageways and doors that I imprinted in my memory; I would need no further guidance after today. The same two men in the same car were waiting for me at the same place. They dropped me off on the pavement in front of my building in Carlton Gardens. There were two things I knew I had to do this evening

Once more in the flat ... my flat ... I took stock a little more closely than I had the previous day. So much had changed in twenty-four hours. I also needed to tell my parents I'd left Oxford and was now working in London. I doubted mother would be terribly happy but as I'd left home almost four years before, her vote was scarcely critical. And then there was the one other task I had set myself for this evening.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the flat was that a large number of packages had been deposited immediately inside my front door. Each one bearing the name of _Anderson & Sheppard_, I realised that this afternoon's sham fitting at Bonneville's tailor might not have been as entirely false as I'd imagined. Sir David must have had one of his people collect the items of clothing and drop them off here for me. It was a thoughtful gesture. The clothes themselves could be paid for at some point, but the fact that he had included me in his operations from the first day was important and meant a great deal to me.

There had been no additional visits by the kitchen fairy, though the packed refrigerator would no doubt keep me fed for some time to come. There was, however, a fat white envelope waiting for me on the desk in the office. The door had been locked when I left that morning and it was still locked when I arrived home, but someone had been in here during the day and left this envelope.

Automatically checking the thing for wires, handwriting and anything untoward, I eventually sat at the desk, opening the package and spreading out the contents.

Item: Two chequebooks from Coutts Bank inside a red leather folder emblazoned with the bank's name on the outside and mine on the inside. I knew little of the institution except that they handled the Queen's banking. If it was good enough for Her Majesty then I could hardly fault it.

Item: A brand new VISA credit card, also from Coutts. The accompanying letter specified I had a charge limit of twenty-thousand pounds, an astronomical amount when one considered the average London salary at the time was in the region of fifteen thousand per annum. I signed the card and tucked it respectfully into my wallet.

Item: A one-page copy of the Official Secrets Act (1980). I read and signed this without a qualm.

Item: Duplicate copies of a Civil Service contract of employment, specifying tasks unspecified, unspecified working hours, unspecified work locations and unspecified responsibilities. I almost laughed. If a more ludicrous contract existed elsewhere, I'd love to see it. Taking up my pen, I signed both copies with a flourish.

There was an addendum, paper-clipped together behind the contract. It laid out the pay scales of Her Majesty's Civil Service, reminding me that I was to be a servant of the crown rather than of the nation's politicians and thus subject to standard remunerations. The pay scales for London for a junior were reasonable, though hardly superlative. It was only when I checked and then very carefully re-checked my actual pay grade that I saw I was not on any junior scale. I was, in fact, being paid at a Deputy Director's grade. Including the London weighting for the position, my annual starting income was _seventy-five thousand pounds_. Even after tax, I would be bringing home an astonishing amount of money.

I sat at my new desk, contemplating the vagaries of life. Only two weeks before, I had been slaving away in a freezing garret of a study at Oxford. Now, I was being treated, quite literally, like royalty, though I had every confidence Bonneville would get his money's worth.

Taking out my new phone, I rang my parents' farmhouse. Dad answered, which was something of a relief as he tended to be the sane one. I explained I had finished my dissertation earlier than anticipated and been offered a job with the Home Office, as a ... I had to think quickly, settling on the role of _political analyst_. It sounded sufficiently vague and yet adequately connected to my studies to make sense. I told him I had access to a government flat and had already started work. Mummy had no need to be worried about anything.

Of course, I was dreaming if I thought she'd let it go at that. Taking the phone from my father, I was grilled for the next five minutes on the minutia of the new job, on the place I would be living and the quite critical question of whether I had sufficient pairs of socks. After several minutes of reassurance that felt like hours, I completed my filial duty and heaved a huge sigh of relief as the call ended.

I checked my watch. It was just on seven-thirty. I decided to change into clothes more suitable for my next set of activities. I selected a pair of dark trousers, a heavy navy blue polo-necked jumper and, after digging around in the parcels left for me from Bonneville's tailors, a long dark trench coat. Leaving the flat's lights on, I picked up the umbrella I'd been given earlier and made my way downstairs to the front of the building. I would find somewhere close by to have dinner.

After that, I was going to hunt down Avel Melnyk.


	3. Chapter 3

Having a near-eidetic memory means two things. Predominantly, it means nearly every question can be answered instantaneously. As soon as I considered where to begin my quest, my brain supplied two options. Melnyk's office location in Woolwich or his residential address in Mile End. Given the time of night and the records of the man's habitual behaviour, the better chance was that I'd find him at a licenced eastern European café in Morgan Street where a number of ex-pat Ukrainians seemed to congregate. The idea of going there to eat something and keep a lookout for Melnyk at the same time seemed logical. I wasn't yet familiar with the various shortcuts on the underground, so grabbed a taxi, getting out at the end of the street and walking down towards the café itself. The dark evening was cold and drizzly, so the umbrella did the double service of keeping me dry and less detectable. Despite the crackle of an invoice in one of the pockets, the coat was warm and suitably cloak-and-dagger. Sherlock would have adored this.

The café had a Russian name which, due to poor lighting, a dreadful paint job and my fledgling command of the language read as 'The Old Empire'. What imperial Russians might be doing in east London was anybody's guess, but the place seemed to be reasonably well patronised and the food smelled appetising. I sat at a small table near the back where the lighting was dim. The waiter looked apathetic but perked up when I ordered a large bowl of beef goulash and a bottle of the house red. I had no illusions about the wine, though I had hopes for the goulash.

Waiting for the food gave me the perfect excuse to look around the place. I wasn't expecting to see Melnyk straightaway which was just as well. The thought that he might recognise me from the tailors was a possibility but I was dressed very differently now, was sitting in part-shade and in any case, what reason would Bonneville's nephew have to frequent a shabby café in London's east side? Most people's brains are so lazy.

The meal arrived; a dish of aromatic stew with paprika, potatoes and dumplings. There was also a basket of dark coarse bread. The wine was from Macedonia but the label details were incomprehensible. The waiter simply left the opened bottle and a large glass for me to drink at my own pace. Pouring a small amount, I swirled the ruby liquid before tasting. It was potent but surprisingly mellow. I had drunk worse at Oxford. The goulash was perfect for the weather and despite having had a perfectly acceptable lunch, I was hungry again, often the case when I was absorbing lots of new information.

I ate slowly, pacing myself and making careful note of everyone who came in. Mostly single men and a few couples. Not a place for families, it seemed. There was a small, ill-lit bar on the far corner of the room with tall wooden stools. Several patrons went directly there, making no pretence they'd come for the food. The conversations in the café were mostly eastern European; some Russian, a smattering of Hungarian and what sounded like Czech. In addition to Arabic and Mandarin, I already possessed the Romance languages and recognised various loan words and shared phrasing. I was struck with the notion that learning Slavic idioms might be sensible sooner rather than later. I also felt a sudden need for some sort of weapon and wondered if Bonneville might give me a gun.

I left the wine after a glass as I wanted a clear head but the goulash was delicious and I made a mental note of the café. It would be nice to return in the summer and see how they handled Borscht. Ordering a coffee, I was beginning to wonder if my prey was going to show tonight when the door opened and two men came in together. One was Melnyk, the other man, wearing a long waterproof and a hideous pair of snakeskin cowboy boots, had his face averted. Walking directly to the bar they sat on stools and ordered beer and several shots of vodka, drinking some of the beer before adding a shot of vodka to the larger glass and sipping again. I couldn't vouch for the quality of such a cocktail, but Melnyk and his companion seemed to find it perfectly palatable. I listened carefully, but their voices were too quiet. I was in something of a quandary.

My current seat in the opposite corner was perfect to observe the place generally, without being observed myself. However, my objective was now more specific but too far away; to overhear Melnyk's conversation, I had to be closer. The sign for the lavatories was not far from where the men sat. If I walked past, would he recognise me? I stood as nonchalantly as I could before walking over, my eyes anywhere but on the two men. As I made the doorway of the lavatories, I risked a swift glance, finally observing the face of Melnyk's friend. I had seen that face very recently. In a photograph.

The unknown friend shared a photograph with Melnyk in Bonneville's file. They had both been in uniforms and carrying automatic weapons. My mind's eye could see the caption on the bottom of the photograph and the words became clear. _Avel Melnyk and Taras Vovk, Ossetia, 1981_. But what was Vovk doing in London? According to notes in Bonneville's folder, Vovk had died during insurgent activities on the outskirts of Abkhazia only months after the photograph had been taken.

I continued into the Gents as I interrogated my memory of Melnyk's file. If that one piece of information was incorrect, it suggested other things might be equally incorrect. What if it hadn't been Melnyk who had betrayed Sir David's colleagues? What if Avel Melnyk was not the villain he'd been painted? Bonneville might be looking for danger in completely the wrong quarter, never identifying the genuine threat until it was too late. I needed another look at Melnyk's file and I wanted to see it tonight before anything else happened. The outer door to the mens' toilets opened and two sets of footsteps entered. I dodged into the nearest cubicle, locked the door and held my breath. It might be anyone, but then I saw the toe of a snakeskin boot underneath the cubicle door and realised I was stuck. In the brighter lighting of the lavatories and in such close quarters, it was probable Melnyk would recognise me. Lowering the lid of the toilet, I sat and waited.

The two men were talking and laughing, partly in English, partly in Ukrainian. There was a mention of a child's birthday and a party; a present was to be purchased. The conversation was light-hearted and not remotely sinister. Melnyk was washing his hands when he mentioned he had met an old friend this afternoon, _someone from the war days_. It could only have been Bonneville. But there was no rancour in his voice, no anger; no suggestion he was talking about the man who had betrayed him into torture and imprisonment. It was odd. Something was wrong.

Eventually both men left and I listened carefully to the sound of their steps moving away from the toilet doors. I cautiously peered around the outer door just as Melnyk and Vovk left the café through the front entrance. I was more than ever determined to have another look at the file Sir David had shown me that afternoon, and I wanted to see it now, tonight, while unanswered questions flooded my thoughts. This was the other thing about having a _near_ -eidetic memory. I knew I couldn't rest until I had the information I wanted. I had to get into Bonneville's office tonight.

###

It is a lesser-known fact that the centre of British governmental administration never actually closes. After I had returned to the flat to collect my security badge, I grabbed a cab back to Whitehall, retracing my steps until I arrived at the entrance where I'd been given the pass in the first place. There were fewer lights and a lot less people around the place, but Her Majesty's Government was very much open for business. Showing the pass and waiting while my details were scribbled down in a night-register, I strode quickly along the maze of marble halls and passageways until I found myself once more outside the small waiting room. Lights shone through the glass above the door, but would the door itself be locked? Given that the room itself was a place to observe people without them knowing, I hoped the door would open. It did and sudden relief eased my shoulders.

I assumed whoever was on duty would be watching and my assumption was proved correct. The inner door opened and Euan, the same young man who'd escorted me to Bonneville's office that morning, looked at me with very raised eyebrows.

"Mycroft?" he opened the inner door wider to let me through.

"There's a file in Sir David's desk I need to see," I said, ignoring the pleasantries. "I saw something tonight that makes me question some information in the file. If I'm right, Sir David might be in serious danger and utterly unprepared for it."

"You want me to let you into Sir David's office?"

"It's critical you do."

"I can't let you in unaccompanied," Euan sounded troubled.

"I don't care if you want to sit on my bloody knee, just get me in there and let me have that file!"

Whether it was the urgency in my voice or the authority bestowed by knowledge, I had no idea, but Euan nodded and beckoned me down the carpeted passage. Bonneville's office was not locked, a fact that surprised me at first until I thought about it. If everyone in the department knew the secrets, a locked door meant very little. I was positive there would be some confidences Sir David would not want anyone but himself to have, though those would not be kept in his office.

Sitting in Bonneville's chair, I went to the same drawer he'd opened that afternoon. The same heavy file was there and I pulled it out, almost spilling the contents across the wide desk.

"What are you looking for?" Euan stood with his arms folded, a strange expression on his face.

I was scrabbling my way through the thick pile of aging photographs until I found the one I sought; the one with Melnyk and Vovk outside Ossetia. Placing the photo to one side, I dived back into the pile of old documents, hunting the letter I remembered clearly. The one signed by Bonneville, giving Melnyk up to the authorities. It was dated 1985. But if that was correct, then something was wrong somewhere ... I returned to the photograph, lifting it into the light before looking for a magnifying glass which Euan conveniently handed to me. The date on the photo said _1981_. Frowning, I switched on Bonneville's desk light, holding the picture directly under its brightness. It was only then I saw the number had been doctored. It wasn't 198 _1_ , but 198 _4_. Someone had very carefully removed the slant and cross-stoke of the '4'. Whoever did this knew that Vovk was still alive after 1981 but wanted everyone to believe the man dead and gone.

 _Why?_

I thought back through Sir David's lecture earlier in the day about the difference between genuine information and details that merely _seemed_ genuine. Returning to the list of deals Melnyk had contracted in Eastern Europe after the Russo-Georgian war, the long list of armament transactions stretched back before 1980, the most recent dated 1987. But Melnyk had been in prison from 1985 until 1986 following Bonneville's betrayal. He could not possibly have been responsible for the completion of any contracts during that time. Which meant there had to have been someone else to do the work. Someone whom Melnyk trusted; someone with whom he would share his deepest confidences, with whom he would share the details of his family. _A friend_. Someone with whom he would go out drinking.

 _Taras Vovk_.

If Taras Vovk's death was falsified in government records, such a thing had been done for one of only two reasons. One, to facilitate the lucrative armaments pipeline between London and Kiev. Two, to wrongly implicate Avel Melnyk in a plot to assassinate Sir David Bonneville. _But why?_ And more importantly, _who?_ I sat back in Bonneville's chair in hard thought.

This cover-up had been in existence since at least 1981. It involved both Vovk as well as someone right here within the British government. Lifting the file and turning it over, I saw a long list of names and signatures on the back; names of the people in whose care this file had rested at one point or another. The very earliest name, the originator of the file, was none other than Sir David Bonneville himself. The date of the file's inception was _1981_.

Was Bonneville masterminding a cover up at the highest level? Was Sir David nothing more than a thief bent on feathering his own retirement nest with the healthy profits of eastern European arms deals? I had nothing more than my own assumptions of Sir David's financial circumstances, though given his car, his predilection for thousand-pound suits and lunches in Mayfair, he'd need a damn good income to keep everything together. Perhaps the notion of an untaxable golden parachute had been too tempting to refuse?

But then, why implicate Melnyk? As soon as I asked the question, the answer was obvious. By creating the notion of some shadowy assassin bent on revenge, Bonneville had the perfect excuse to keep his eyes on the arms pipeline and everything that affected it. What was it he had said? _He had eyes everywhere_. All the better to deceive you with, Little Red Riding Hood. Bonneville had deliberately and cold-bloodedly thrown suspicion on a man he had already condemned to imprisonment and torture, merely to facilitate a series of illegal arms deals. It was entirely likely that the evidence used to condemn Melnyk was equally fabricated.

My stomach knotted. I wasn't sure if I felt sick because of the betrayal I'd just uncovered or the fact that nobody else had. And then, of course, was the question of what I was going to do about it all. I stood abruptly.

"Thank you," I said, piling the file's contents back into the folder, making sure the desk was clear of all the papers. "I have what I wanted, Euan," I nodded. "Thank you for letting me see this. I wouldn't have slept a wink missing this detail," I smiled a little then. "I'm going home now. See you in the morning."

"I'll have to let Sir David know you were in here tonight," Euan was concerned, partly questioning.

"That's fine. I'll be talking to him first thing in any case," I added, rubbing my eyes. "See you in the morning."

Heading back out the way I'd come, I was confident Bonneville already knew I'd been in his office looking at the Melnyk file. If it were my office, I'd have cameras everywhere. I smiled. _I'd even have them out in the waiting room_. I slowed my stride as I approached the security guards at the building's exit, half expecting a couple of men in dark coats. There were only the same two guards who had let me in thirty minutes before. I swallowed my relief.

It was only as I stepped out into the late evening that I realised Sir David didn't need to have his men here waiting for me at Whitehall; everyone knew where I was living, and someone had keys; the bags from Anderson and Sheppard and the white envelope with the contracts didn't fly in there by themselves. It was obvious I couldn't return to the flat tonight, not without some means of protecting myself.

But this was London, a major capital of the Western world. One of the things this city was not short of was hotels and I had enough cash in my wallet to last for several days. Flagging down a black cab, I told the driver to head south over the river to the cheaper areas. I was looking, I said, for a clean hotel used by business people in the city for only a day or two. Nothing fancy, just clean and anonymous.

The driver said he knew just the place and ended dropping me off in front of Walford's _Eurotraveller Hotel_. There was a twenty-four-hour reception and even at this time of the evening, there seemed to be a good number of people moving around. Reception was brightly lit and while everything was more reminiscent of a motel, the place was adequate. I booked in for the night. If I hadn't resolved the situation by tomorrow, nowhere was going to be safe. Used to catering for the sometimes disorganised business traveller, the hotel boasted a small shop, also open around the clock. There were business shirts, socks, underwear, sleepwear and toiletries. A rack of cheap paperbacks stood opposite a similar rack of popular medications and chemist-wares. Buying a couple of white shirts and a bag of essential supplies including a spray bottle of deodorant, I took the lift up to my room

Never had I felt more like taking up smoking, but first I wanted to get my thinking in order. Throwing my purchases on the bed and emptying my pockets of all I carried, I found the receipt for the coat and was about to throw it in the bin when several printed details caught my eye.

All the clothes bought at the shop today had gone onto Bonneville's personal account, the details of which were printed out at the bottom of the long piece of paper. Details which included a residential address.

Checking my watch, I saw it was close to eleven. Though it had been a long day, I'd had much longer ones in the last couple of weeks; a few more hours of vigilance wouldn't kill me. Putting the deodorant in my coat pocket and locking my room, I walked out through hotel reception, into the driveway where a cab was just being paid off by a passenger. Hopping into the back seat, I asked to be taken to an address in Albermarle Street, Mayfair. I knew where Sir David Bonneville lived and I was going to find out if he was a traitor.

###

A five-story town-house, elegant, with tall Georgian windows, appropriately situated wrought iron balconies, window boxes and front porch lights. Sir David did not stint himself when it came to the finer things in life. The ground floor had only two lights showing; one in the hallway, illuminating the front door and a second in the room to the left of the door. A sitting room perhaps? I stood across the road in dark shadows, knowing that something was going to happen though not entirely sure what. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I realised there was a faint gleam of light at the edge of the door itself. It was partly open.

On a bitter January night with rain and snow in the air, nobody would leave their front door open, not even by accident. Without realising it, I was sprinting across the street and up the few stone steps leading to Bonneville's house. No matter what my suspicions might be, something was terribly wrong here and I needed to know before I chose which side I was going to stand on.

The door swung inwards at my touch and a wave of warmth brushed my face. Closing the door behind me, I headed towards the lit doorway on the left. Moving silently and peering around the frame, I saw Sir David seated in a Chesterfield beside a roaring fire. He was sipping from a brandy balloon and appeared perfectly alright.

"Come in," he said. "I've been expecting you."

Taking a breath, I did as I was bid, stepping further into the light. The sharp surprise on Bonneville's face was almost comical had he not immediately scowled, sitting forward and glaring at me.

"What in damnation are you doing here, Holmes?" he hissed. "I've been setting this little _dénouement_ up for months. What do you mean by barging in here and risking it all?"

I considered. My mentor had no idea of my activities this evening. If he had, his response to my appearance would have been markedly different. Time for explanations later.

"I don't think Avel Melnyk is the man planning to murder you," I spoke quickly. "There are errors in the file; the dates are wrong."

"I _know_ the bloody dates are wrong," Sir David checked his watch, an old Edwardian silver hunter he carried on a waistcoat chain. "I changed them to ensure nobody else would go after Melnyk until I was ready. There is a _reason_ the dates are wrong. Now get the hell away from here!"

There was something in his voice that made me turn and leave without another word. I had no idea what was going on but I seemed to have jumped right in the middle of it. Realising Bonneville was indeed waiting for someone who happened not to be me, I was about to leave the house when I heard soft footsteps on the stone steps beyond the door. Instinctively, I ducked back into the unlit doorway of the room directly opposite the sitting room where Sir David was waiting. I could see and hear everything.

A tall man came in, his back to me. Not bothering to look around, it felt as if he already knew his way around, as if he'd been in the house before. He headed directly for the doorway opposite the one I was hiding inside. It was Melnyk. He stood still, framed in the doorway.

"Avel," though I couldn't see Bonneville in the room, it sounded as though he was still seated. "Come in, old friend."

"I have not been your friend for a very long time, have I, David?" Melnyk's accent did nothing to obscure his words. "I knew today, when we met in the tailors, I could no longer stomach your lying hypocrisy," he snarled. "You _betrayed_ me! You sent me to prison! You gave me to those _monsters!_ "

"Just as you betrayed our friends. You and your brother were happy to murder anyone who got in the way of the shipments; their families and children," Sir David's voice remained composed as Melnyk took a step further into the room.

"Brother? I have no brother."

"Your brother, Taras Vovk," Bonneville replied. "You and he pretended no familial connection so that he would not be captured along with you and could therefore continue the arms deals. The two of you killed everyone who fought for the cause, you were only in it for the money," Sir David paused. "You disgust me."

Melnyk laughed. "You always did know too much, David," he said softly. "Taras and I used to mock your mistaken belief in _people_ ," he said. "Though my brother is slightly better with a knife than I am," he paused, reaching into his coat pocket and bringing out a pistol. "Personally, I prefer one of these."

"Killing me won't do you any good," Bonneville sounded weary. "People are already coming for you, though if you murder me, you will never be released this time. _Never_."

"As if I would give any credence to your poisoned words," Melnyk pointed his gun and fired.

 _I froze_. I simply froze.

I had no weapon other than a bottle of spray deodorant, useless except at close quarters. Melnyk had a gun. I had no experience of unarmed combat and he had killed many times. He was at least five stone heavier than I. If I wanted to help Sir David, I needed not to die. In the two seconds it took this understanding to reach my brain's higher reasoning, Avel Melnyk had already left the house, closing the door behind him with a loud _click_. I ran into the sitting room, only to see Bonneville slumped back in his chair by the fire, eyes closed and frighteningly still.

" _Sir David_ ," I looked for blood, a wound, but nothing was immediately evident. I tried to find a pulse in his wrist, my entire attention focused on locating the bloody thing when all I could feel was the thunder of my own blood roaring around my head.

" _Fuck_ ," I forced myself to calm and focus on the soft underside of Bonneville's wrist.

I found a pulse. Moving my fingertips a fraction, I realised it was a strong pulse, a little fast but not indicative of someone who'd just undergone major physical trauma. I slowly raised my eyes, to find myself staring into Sir David's amused gaze.

"Thank you, Mycroft," Bonneville coughed oddly, but waited until I released his arm. "I appreciate your concern but as you can see, I am quite well," he sounded a little breathless.

"Melnyk shot you," I said. "I heard everything."

"Bullet-proof vest," Bonneville patted his chest. "Avel always uses a heart-shot; the chances of him doing anything else were microscopically small. There was a bit of a thump but little more."

I stood, unsure of anything. It was then I saw the small stain of red just above the opening of Sir David's waistcoat.

"You're bleeding."

"Impossible," he scowled again, rapidly undoing buttons until he reached his shirt where a dark stain was spreading rapidly across the white linen.

"Damn," Bonneville sat back in his chair. "The bullet must have been high enough to catch me just above the vest," his voice was suddenly very breathless and he coughed again. "Call an ambulance, there's a good chap," Sir David closed his eyes. "Call the office and tell them where I am, please."

In the next instant, he was unconscious and the blood was not stopping. I grabbed the linen cloth off a side table and pressed it hard against the wound. Reaching into my pocket, I called 999 on my little phone, giving the address and demanding an ambulance, making it clear who the patient would be. I also rang the number of the card Bonneville had given me in Oxford. I wondered if the line would be monitored at this time of night.

"Director's office, may I ask who's calling, please?"

I explained the situation and was told to accompany Sir David in the ambulance. On no account was I to leave him alone before I was relieved by the appropriate personnel at the hospital. Was that entirely clear?

It was.

###

The bullet had nicked Sir David's left lung near the top, but the loss of blood and inability to breathe had triggered a small heart-attack. While measures had been taken to assuage the situation, Bonneville was expected to be unconscious for at least a couple of days while his body recovered from the shock. Though he looked younger, he was seventy-two years old.

I returned to my flat to clean up and sleep for a few hours before heading back in to the office. Not quite yet understanding my position, I nevertheless called for a meeting of senior staff and explained what had happened. I also said that during Sir David's hopefully brief absence, I would fulfil my role as his deputy and, for the time being, would be using his office. Half expecting dissent, I met none at all, not a single curled lip or averted gaze.

Euan was the one who handed me Sir David's still-unsigned order committing one Avel Melnyk to an unspecified term of detention at an unspecified place of confinement.

"How hard do you want our people to go after Melnyk?" Euan sounded hesitant.

"As hard as possible," I nodded, taking the letter.

"Do you know what that actually means?" Euan narrowed his eyes. "To go as hard as possible?"

"I expect it means terminal force," I met his gaze without a blink, understanding in that instant the importance between what was real and what only _seemed_ real, between the things that were written on paper and things that were written on life. Avel Melnyk was a murderer, a traitor, a spy and a thief. He was also stupid and had attempted to put an end to the only man clever enough to have brought him to justice. I did not want Melnyk around to come after Sir David again. Or me.

"Terminal force?" Euan raised his eyebrows.

"Absolutely," I said, signing a man's life away. I fully intended to do this job to the best of my ability for as long as I possibly could and one less enemy made perfect sense.

I sat in Sir David's chair and watched the sky grow dark.


End file.
